Psychological ownership: linking employee past and future in an organization to employee outcomes

Abstract

Modern day management has placed increasing importance on creating organic and substantive relationships between employees and employers as in knowledge based economies, organizational efficiency and effectiveness depends much on employees’ initiatives and extra-ordinary efforts. In the present study, we focus on psychological ownership, described by Pierce (2003) as a cognitive-affective state that reflects employees’ awareness, thoughts, and beliefs that the target of ownership (e.g. the organization) is theirs, as a form of such relationships. We adopt a temporal perspective in conceptualizing how psychological ownership may be cultivated and how psychological ownership, in turn, would lead to ...